June 2008

Howdy!

More updates. Nicely enough, the weather has settled down, although we still have random thunderstorms (sometimes just the rain, sometimes just the thunder beneath sunny skies, sometimes a combination) for about an hour, every other day or so. The humidity comes and goes, but we are getting used to it. We do a lot the first and last hours of daylight, which can be challenging at nightfall, because it does not really get dark until about 9:30 or so.

We still spend a lot of time outside: breakfast and the newspaper (such as it is) in the morning, walks around the lake or the neighborhood in the evening. And our yard keeps revealing itself. We have identified many more plants, and new things pop up all the time; we’ve even started a compost heap. There were these wonderful flowers coming up in several places; it turned out they are astilbe, which Stephen discovered because it was featured in the newest “Martha Stewart Living.” Our magnolia on the side of the house has started to bloom, which is just as well, since the roses are already done. It’s nice that we have so much going on, since nothing ever seems to last for more than a week or so, except for the tons of daylilies that have been going strong (excepting the ones Maisie and Rosie have trampled in their pursuit of squirrels) and look likely to continue. A few nights ago, to our delight we found that we have fireflies at dusk; they are magical, but baffle the poor dogs. And we also get a lot of pleasure discussing future (Immediate, One Day, Never) plans for the backyard, everything from a hammock to building in terraces and low stone walls on the grade at the back. Today we dragged our patio chairs all over, trying out spots for a hypothetical future bench.

Not that we have to do anything anytime soon. Nevertheless, the pressure is on, as the former owners left us a lot to live up to. We have discovered by meeting several of our neighbors that almost all of them are familiar with our yard, and admit it is one of the nicest on the block. And apparently, our street is considered one of the “better” streets: two City Council members and the former City Manager live on Bayham as well. We went to a specially held board meeting for the Historical Society (although we were not yet even members, but were invited by two of the board!) because the new City Manager, Jane Berry, was going to be there. In the past, there has been some friction between “The Village” and the Historical Society, so this was a chance to get someone on “our” side. Anyway, it turns out she has lived here just three months, having moved here from somewhere in New York, and upon being introduced, and learning that we were newcomers on Bayham, shocked us by telling us that we had taken “her” house: she and her husband had seen it online and were seriously considering it, but we bought it just before they were able to look at it! It is all so small-town: the President of the Historical Society lives on Handel Lane, just two doors down from my old house (although they didn’t move in until 1987). He also continued the chain of coincidence by producing some Greenhills memorabilia from the 'fifties that had just been given to him at church (of course!), by a nice woman named Alma Muller who used to live on Gambier Court. Bear in mind, I only know a few people in Ohio, either members of the Historical Society, or working at Starbucks. Alma Muller is the grandmother of a friend of mine at work! I only knew that because he had mentioned that his dad had grown up in Greenhills, on Gambier, which was the only reason he had heard of our little village.

Speaking of work, I am midway through my training, and although Starbucks itself is great, I’m not sure that my trainer, Todd, and I are a good fit. Although a Store Manager himself, I am the first manager he has trained, and he doesn’t seem very well prepared. He has also told me (more than once) that he is burnt-out by his job; I am wondering if the District Manager gave me to him to give him something new to do. I am training in a store in Loveland (really—the names here are great. There is also a Mt Healthy, Rabbit Hash, and so on), which is a fairly affluent area near to a lot of recreational areas. The other claim to fame for Loveland is that it is the home of Tom Wilson, creator of the cartoon “Ziggy,” who is one of our regular customers (Tom, not Ziggy). Stephen is still looking for work, but has interviews all the time. We anticipated that it would take him a little longer since his job doesn’t really have an applicable equivalent, so we’re not too worried.

I’ve got to go, as Stephen wants to run over to Jungle Jim’s, this enormous four acre grocery store that defies description (it’s the one that has the twelve-foot butter case, a six foot singing soup can over the Campbell’s aisle, and offers alligator meat, among other things), and then we have to get our picnic dinner ready to walk up to the Concert on the Green, held on alternate Wednesdays during summer. Tonight is some big band group from 7 until 9, which should be fun.

Remind me about how happy we are these days when I call sometime crying about being snowed in!
Love, Rob't

Packing, Driving, Arriving - May 2008

Howdy!

I’m not big on all this high-tech stuff, but with so many of you expressing (or at least feigning) an interest in our Ohio Adventure, here is a blanket update about our first few weeks. Future missives will be personal, and perhaps hand-written, if one still remembers how (and can find one’s stationery amidst the still too-numerous unopened cartons).

In Long Beach, the movers were very nice, as we were not remotely ready to be moved, still packing even as they were loading; although they were amazed that we had done so much in so little time. They assumed we had been packing for over a week, when in fact we had started Sunday night and worked pretty much continually until that Thursday, more randomly and haphazardly with each succeeding carton. The movers were even nice about the fact that Maisie and Rosie would insist on helping: “Uh, Sir, there goes that dog again….”

As someone once said, “Books do furnish a room.” But they didn’t mention that they also weigh a ton, or more—literally. Our final total weight was in the mid-thirteen thousand pounds, and those of you who have visited our apartment know how little furniture we own. And the couch stayed in California. Anyway, we ended up with over three hundred and fifty cartons, bins, and “miscellaneous” (that bundle of birch branches, to pick just one example, was going to look so good next to the fireplace there was no thought of leaving it). The van left and we went out to eat (they had taken the 'fridge, after all), backs aching, hands shaking, eyes akimbo… but done. With the packing.

We left early the next day from my Mom’s house for our two thousand-plus mile sojourn, our poor XB packed to the gills with all the things the movers had not taken (because we had not yet packed them, alas), with no room left for such basics as the dogs, or luggage for the five day road trip. Jettisoning all kinds of valuables in Mom’s garage (here I am with the biggest yard I’ve ever had and no croquet set!), we finally fit in the dogs and snacks and innumerable CDs so necessary for our journey.

We had plotted the drive out as five easy-ish days, partly based on not knowing exactly how well the pooches would take to the car for such long periods. Our route was simple: get to the 15N, shoot through Vegas and up into Utah, then hang a big left once we got to I-70, which would take us cross-country and nearly to our front door. Our route was the reverse of one driven by my mother, sister and me along with some friends when returning to California after living in Ohio briefly many years ago.

The highlight of that earlier trip, the source of numerous and profane family stories over the years, was when our station wagon broke down in Wakeenee, “Blink and You’ll Miss It,” Kansas, stranding us for a few days while waiting for repairs. And the highlight of this current trip—but you’ve guessed. Closer to Topeka than to Wakeenee, true, and not a random engine part, but a freak accident involving a wild turkey and our front windshield. The really remarkable part was the reaction from the repair shop: not that it had happened at all, but that usually the turkeys go clean [sic] through the windshield. Apparently, drive-by poultry is not unknown in the Midwest. While waiting for a new windshield, mercifully just a few hours rather than days, the townsfolk all attempted to “relate” to us by sharing their stories about raccoons and headlights, or deer and radiators, et cetera and truly ad nauseum.

Beyond that, the drive was delightfully uneventful, despite the dire warnings of the Weather Channel, which we watched religiously each morning. We were lucky enough always to be a day ahead of or behind the tornadoes, floods, heat waves, and so on. The dogs enjoyed the ride, enjoyed the rest stops even more, and the few plants I insisted on bringing from our patio survived, hoorah.

We reached our new home fairly late on Tuesday afternoon, and the movers were due to meet up with us the next morning. Luckily, we had bought a small bed and a few other necessities on our brief visit here in April, so we were able to play house convincingly until all the rest of the three-hundred and fifty boxes and goodies arrived. We took the dogs into the back yard for the first time, and it was marvelous, confirming every impulse we had to buy this house, this yard.

And what a yard. Or to reach closer to the truth: what a meadow. What with all the April showers, and no one to mow the lawn for about three months, the grass was about two and a half feet high. When Rosie ran through it you could barely see her, akin to seeing a cheetah ripple the weeds on the savannah. Well, not too much akin, as no self-respecting cheetah would spazz around (and there really are no other words for it) the

way Rosie did. Maisie, of course, maintained her usual dignity, until she went behind some unidentified shrubbery and rolled in something horrendously noisome. She had the first of many subsequent baths that evening. There was one lovely smell under the arbor coming from a large shrub, which we later found out was lilac, just finishing its bloom until next year, alas.

We slept wonderfully that night, for the first time all in our new home. Blissfully quiet and wonderfully dark, until the next dawn, when we were given reveille by the innumerable birds. It is astounding how much sound can come out of something so small.

Anyway. The movers arrived to unload our stuff, again with patience to spare, as we were never quite sure in which room which boxes were meant to go, due to our inadequate and perfunctory labeling. We finally just stood aside and let them sort it all out, which they did in just a few hours. And again we went off to eat, as although we now had our 'fridge back, there was nothing in it.

Any place you hang your hat is home, but once you’ve hung that hat (and usually changed your mind at least twice, lost the screws to the hook, hit your thumb with the hammer, then had Stephen come in and suggest that the hat rack would look so much better over there…) there is still plenty to do. The next few days were a blur of boxes, stairs, and remembering that you had just seen x, y, or z… but where? Every day included a trip to Ikea, Target, or Home Depot for some necessary or, more frequently, unlocateable item. Gradually we have been able to make sense of it, and three weeks in, we are nearly done: utensils located, pictures hung (then rehung), knickknacks displayed.

There has been plenty of activity and discovery outside our four walls as well. Our pond, it turns out, actually has three fish, not just one. And raccoons get into it nearly every night, as they are extremely partial to water hyacinth. Fortunately for us, water hyacinth is not too expensive, unlikely nearly every other plant out here. A visit to a local nursery nearly gave me sticker shock, as plants that are $2.99 in California are $6.99 or more here, if available at all. One nursery we saw was offering nothing but geraniums, which are perfectly pleasant, but…. Happily, after having a gardener come and mow down our meadow (there being no scythe in our shed, and already having made one trip to Home Depot that day), we discovered our yard does not seem to need any additions. Besides the lilac, we find we have peonies (whose cut blooms perfumed our house for a week), blue salvia, day lilies, astilbe (wonderful!), hydrangea, and much more, still to be identified. What is taking some getting used to is the –I guess you’d call it—seasonality of the plants, particularly in contrast to California. We missed the tulips, which were just coming up when we visited in April, but now finished. We had spectacular climbing roses blooming… for a week, concluded for this year. A hydrangea I had smuggled in from California went onto the front porch, to the amazement of the neighbors, since it was already blooming, and those here will not bloom for several more weeks.

The neighbors have been amazing us right back as well. First off, we have met some of them! When we were having our “everything must go” garage sale just before leaving California, we had customers who turned out to have been neighbors of ours for years that we had never even seen, let alone gotten to know. Hello and goodbye. Just a few days after arriving, Susan from next door came over with a plate of still-warm brownies (her husband, John, had kept our front yard mowed, but was too polite to go into the backyard uninvited), and a “Cincinnati Welcome Kit” which included cans of chili from both Skyline and GoldStar, the city’s two big-deal rivals, so we could decide which camp we belonged in. It turned out, neither, as Cincinnati chili bears no relation to anything known out west, having neither beans nor discernable meat, and whose primary spice is apparently nutmeg. Another western transplant we met referred to it as “liquefied Alpo,’ which, if crossed with the flavor of gingerbread, would not be far from the truth. Still, Susan’s was a kind gesture, a token of small-town life.

“How small is it?” you are no-doubt asking. When I called the city offices a few days after our arrival to find out about trash pick-up, the woman on the other end of the phone knew what street we were on as soon as I said we were newcomers. She even knew our names, then apologized that they had not yet dropped off (yes--versus mailing) the village welcome/information kit. When the former owner of our house stopped by a few days ago with some additional information for us, he remarked on how nice the roses looked, but added he wasn’t surprised, since he had heard from one of the neighbors back in April that I had pruned them. It’s not that we have anything to hide, but we are seriously considering getting heavier drapes for all the front windows.

Despite some lingering paranoia (is our little Mayberry really more Stepford?), we are doing our best to be civic. Our first weekend here, we attended the (second) annual Art Show in the historic Community Building. Although the “art” per se was not much, the Greenhills Historical Society was also present, showing off the WPA murals throughout the building, and their small museum. The aptly named Betty Senior, one of the GHS mucky-mucks, glommed onto us as new blood, and deserting her post, showed us around a lot of the building. We also met Lisa the Librarian (it does sometimes seem rather “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”...), who was proudly pointing out a just-released book about Roosevelt’s New Deal, which included a section on Greenhills and the other two Greenbelt towns.

The following weekend, having our choice between a steak dinner at the American Legion Hall, or “Chili for God” (as Stephen called it) at St. Mary’s, we opted for the former. Entering Legion Post 530, we immediately lowered the average age in the room by about ten years. We chose our table, after making sure we knew the whereabouts of the bar (which is a permanent fixture of the hall, not just put up for the event. There is also, we were told, a second private bar known as the “Club Room” in the basement). The only other person at our table was a nice fellow named Howie, with whom we eventually hit it off. It did not begin well, though. Having gradually gotten used to the fact that we were from California, he was then further disappointed to discover that: a) we were not veterans; b) did not hunt or shoot; and c) did not operate ham radios. We appealed to his ego by having him explain Cincinnati to us dumb clucks, which, along with his pitcher of beer, seemed to placate him, and soon enough we were all chums. He even introduced us to, or at least pointed out, several other Legionnaires and persons of consequence, including Greenhills’ mayor of about twenty years, Oscar “Ockie” Hoffman.

This was useful to know, as Stephen inadvertently discovered just a few nights later. He was walking up to the green to attend a meeting on proposed bike and walking trails for the Village, as well as other improvements, prepared by UC (and I still wait for an additional letter or letters) students, when he met up with a small group heading the same way, including Ockie and Mrs. Ockie. Stephen chatted with them briefly, and Mrs. O, like any well-trained politico’s spouse hardly batted an eye after enquiring about Stephen’s wife and having him reply that Robert was not able to attend because he was working. The meeting was interesting, and one hopes the proposed plans will go through, although this may not be likely.

For even in so small a village, there is quite a bit of intrigue and a number of factions, as we subsequently learned while visiting with a shop owner, Linda. (Stepford out, Peyton Place in?) She explained about the different groups, some pushing for “progress,” others trying to retain and restore the history (the entire village is on the National Register of Historic Places, but may lose that status if too much more is altered or torn down), and we were chiming in on the side of History. The Council doesn’t like the Historical Society, the Junedale and Catholic Church groups compete with everyone, and no one likes the Kiwanis, although all of them are vying for the attention of a newly installed Town Manager. We offered various ideas and solutions based on our admittedly brief occupancy. She seemed to like most of them, and as Linda was saying that we ought to meet Terri, President of the Neighborhood Association, and Secretary of the Historical Society, in she walked. She had, of course, “heard all about us,” and seen us out walking, and at the various events. She liked our ideas, too, as well as our enthusiasm, and hoped that as new voices in town we might be able to help get things done. We’ll see. (As I am writing this, she just dropped off an invitation to attend the next Historical Society board meeting Monday, and a “Village Clean-up” event Saturday.)

As conflicted and changeable as the village politics seem to be, they are as nothing compared to the weather. Although most days have been sunny and grand, in our few weeks here we have had heat waves, pouring rain that ends as soon as it begins (enough once to pop out a basement window and let in a torrent; luckily, it was on the unfinished side, and everything stored there was in plastic bins), and tornado warnings. You will soon learn there is a difference between a “warning” and a mere “watch,” and although the natives seem curiously apathetic about both, the local news is another story: constantly interrupting programs or inserting “crawls” for weather updates, like a televised boy who cries wolf. Our only potentially serious tornado incident occurred while we were at Target (naturally), but looking about at the other shoppers who continued nonchalantly to fill their carts while sirens blared convinced us to relax a little. And while checking out, waiting for a break in the rain to hurry home, the checker suggested it would be a good night for a chicken dinner, and didn’t we think it would be a good idea to stop at the market on the way home to pick up some asparagus! I guess I’m still a crazy Californian at heart, but I don’t immediately associate asparagus and tornado warnings.

And did I mention the cicadas? Next time….

Love, Rob't